T1 Industrials

Fast transports, which are used to move low-volume, high-value goods quickly and safely.

Bulk transports, which have a much higher capacity than the fast transports, but are slower and and have less tank

Specialized transports, which are similar to bulk transports in terms of tank and agility, but have very large cargoholds that can carry only one type of item (such as ammunition or minerals)

For example, the Wreathe (Minmatar fast transport) can be fit to align in as little as 4 seconds while having 22k EHP, but would only have a cargo capacity of up to 4,622 m3. On the opposite end of the spectrum, a Bestower (Amarr bulk transport) can be fit to carry up to 39k m3 but will take at least 13 seconds to align and have less than 8k EHP. To that end, fast transports can be fit to transport material through lowsec relatively safely, whereas bulk transports should be restricted to systems known to be safe unless accompanied by an escort, e.g. an OOC alt.

For fitting, industrials tend to have base powergrid around the level of destroyers and quite high amounts of CPU, which is mostly used by a shield tank. The low slots are often filled with expanded cargoholds, though these can be swapped out with inertia stabilizers or nanofiber internal structures for smaller hauls to increase agility, thereby decreasing align time and cutting down a little on travel time. Agility mods are especially important on fast transports operating in low security space. If you are looking to do a lot of distribution missions or otherwise do a lot of traveling, warp speed rigs (Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizers) can cut travel time by more than half.

Each race has its own industrials, which require their racial Industrial skill - for example, Amarr Industrial. Alpha clones are limited to one skill level of their racial industrial. The Tech 1 industrials get 5% bonuses to cargo capacity and either agility (fast transports) or velocity (bulk transports) per level. You receive a free fast transport if you complete the Industry career agent missions.

The four races do not all have the same number of Tech 1 industrials, and which race's industrials will offer the highest cargo capacity depends on the amount of training time you are prepared to invest.

Amarr

The Bestower offers you the best potential cargo capacity for general cargo but has less than 8k EHP when fit this way. Meanwhile the Sigil is an overall poor industrial ship.

Caldari

The Badger has the highest base cargo capacity of the fast transports. The Tayra has the least potential capacity of the bulk transports but the highest base capacity and highest tank, however it is outperformed in fast, secure hauling by the Badger and in bulk hauling by the other races' bulk transports.

Minmatar

The Minmatar industrials are significantly faster than other industrials in the same ship class. They manage this speed without sacrificing tank or cargo capacity, making them ideal for doing distribution missions or even for lowsec hauling.

Gallente

The Gallente have several specialized ships (which have vast cargo bays but can only transport specific kinds of items in them), while the non-specialized fast/bulk transports give good all-round performance.

T2 Industrials

Blockade Runners

Primary use: Relatively small and/or very expensive cargo through lowsec/nullsec/w-space.

Blockade runners are the fastest and most agile industrial ships by quite a margin. They can align as quickly as a frigate, are some of the fastest ships in EVE at warp speeds, and even at sub-light speeds they can fly as quickly as a fast cruiser. Additionally, they can fit covert ops cloaking devices (and hence can warp while cloaked). This means that the only real danger to a properly fitted and flown blockade runner are the warp disruption bubbles in nullsec and w-space.

They can carry a little less cargo than the Tech 1 fast transports, but can be fitted to carry up to about 10,000m3 of cargo (enough to carry a packaged cruiser) at the cost of reduced agility and/or speed.

Deep Space Transports

Unlike blockade runners, deep space transports (DST) have a larger capacity than their Tech 1 equivalents. They also have a fleet hangar that holds (base) 50,000m³. They have bonuses to active tanking, either shield resistances or armor resistances, helping them to fit substantial buffer tanks. Finally, they get a unique role bonus of 100% to overheating benefits of Afterburners, Microwarpdrives, Local Repair Modules, and Resistance Modules.

They also have a role bonus of +2 warp strength: this means they can't be tackled by just one warp disruptor or non-faction warp scrambler, though they can still be caught by bubbles, gangs of tacklers or HICs.

Where blockade runners are meant to rely on speed and stealth to slip by the enemy, deep space transports are designed to bust their way through the enemy, relying on their warp strength and tanking abilities to escape. This probably won't work against a determined and well-prepared gatecamp, and using a deep space transport indicates to all and sundry that you have cargo you want to protect, so you should think carefully before deploying one.

All DSTs have a base 50k m³ (60k m³ with the Transport Ships skill trained to IV) fleet hangar which can hold any type of cargo, assembled ships, or even packaged battleships. As such, fitting these ships for cargo is redundant since cargo rigs and modules only affect the much smaller main cargo bay. DSTs should be fit and skilled into to play to their active tanking and overheating bonuses in order to maximize survivability, as these ships will primarily be used to transport large quantities of high-value goods.

Freighters

Freighters are the ultimate cargo carrying ships, with vast cargo holds. Freighters can often be spotted on New Eden's major highsec trade routes, while the Tech 2 jump freighters are used to transport cargo out to nullsec. All freighters have no high, mid, or rig slots but with the Kronos expansion received 3 low slots, with restrictive CPU and Powergrid to limit the available modules with a role bonus to Reinforced Bulkheads. A freighter pilot's only other way of enhancing their ship's performance is via hardwiring implants.

Freighters are subject to certain restrictions: Assembled containers and assembled secure containers cannot be put in a freighter's cargo hold, so that pilots can't use containers to increase freighters' cargo capacity in the same way that they're used to increase the capacity of industrials.

Use Freighters for huge cargo through high sec and very short distances into low sec. These require proper support (someone to web for faster aligns, scouts, preferably some EW).

The four Tech 1 general freighters are good for carrying very large amounts of cargo in high security space. They align and warp too slowly to be safely used in lowsec or nullsec. Freighters are very tough, but they are definitely not immune to suicide ganking -- organised and prepared groups of gankers can and do kill freighters.

The Tech 1 ORE Freighter is specialised in carrying assembled ships, and is used widely for transporting Incursion ships through high security space.

All five freighters get 5% bonuses to cargo capacity (or ship maintenance bay in the case of the Bowhead) and velocity per level of their pilot's racial freighter skill (Amarr Freighter, Gallente Freighter, etc.). Since you must train the freighter skill to at least level 1, the base capacity of the ship is only used to calculate the actual capacity. It is worth noting that the Caldari freighters with Caldari Freighter 4 can hold more than any other freighter, even with their respective freighter skills trained to 5.

With the Kronos update, freighters and jump freighters all gained 3 low slots and reductions in cargo capacity. They can be fit to surpass their pre-Kronos cargo capacities with expanded cargoholds at the expense of tank. The tendency for freighter pilots to fit for maximum isk rather than maximum tank and then proceed to autopilot their freighters between trade hubs led to widespread ganking. As such, it is strongly recommended that pilots who unwisely opt to autopilot their ships fit reinforced bulkheads instead in order to protect their investments.

Jump Freighters (T2 Freighter)

The Tech 2 versions of freighters, jump freighters, have a reduced cargo capacity but are capable of using cynosural fields to jump long distances. They are also able to use stargates like normal ships. (Since cynosural fields cannot be lit in highsec, jump freighters travelling in highsec have to use stargates.) This makes them ideal supply ships for people who live in nullsec.

Jump freighters get 5% bonuses to cargo capacity and agility per level of the pilot's racial freighter skill, and 10% bonuses to shield, armor and hull hitpoints for each level the pilot has in Jump Freighters. The Jump Freighters skill also gives them a 10% per level reduction in jump fuel needs.

Use Jump Freighters to carry cargo from the high/low sec border to wherever it is needed in null sec and back again. Caldari freighters are the largest, closely followed by Gallente, then Amarr and lastly Minmatar, which is partially compensated for by lower fuel use. The difference is not large though.

Jump freighters have much larger potential tanks than Tech 1 freighters when properly fit, but at the cost of a much reduced cargo bay. All jump freighters can exceed 500,000 EHP in tank, which makes ganking them in highsec extraordinarily difficult and expensive.